


[untitled again, can you tell I don't like coming up with titles]

by TarvaBaggins



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-26
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-15 20:55:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29565021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TarvaBaggins/pseuds/TarvaBaggins
Summary: Haircuts! :-DThis one isn't even angsty.  Y'all better appreciate that.
Relationships: Beleg Cúthalion & Túrin Turambar
Kudos: 1





	[untitled again, can you tell I don't like coming up with titles]

**Author's Note:**

> This doesn’t line up exactly with the same continuity timeline I use for my drawings, but it was fun to write anyway, and I guess it works as a Plan B timeline.  
> Platonic relationship, per the usual.

~ _MENEGROTH_ ~

Túrin watched the flash of Beleg’s dagger as it sang against the sharpening stone, back and forth, back and forth. Beleg was humming some song Túrin hadn’t learned yet, and the tones of the sharpening stone harmonized with the elf’s voice in an almost hypnotizing way.

Beleg was Túrin’s favorite marchwarden. Nellas teased him about this. “It’s just because he’s the head captain, isn’t it?” But it wasn’t. Túrin just liked him, and Beleg seemed to like Túrin more than any of the other grownup elves did, except Thingol, of course. Maybe because he was the one Túrin had met first.

Beleg glanced up, seeming to have sensed that Túrin was looking at him. A corner of his mouth lifted as if he had some kind of inside joke with Túrin, and his eyes glinted behind the forelock of loose hair that tumbled over the bridge of his nose.

“How do you even _see_?”

The question had left Túrin’s lips before he could stop it. Instantly he regretted it—it might come across as too critical—but Beleg didn’t seem to mind the question: he actually laughed.

“Why?” he asked.

“Well, you know, your hair, being the way it is, over your eyes. Isn’t it inconvenient?”

“Actually not. This little bit in the front never did what it was supposed to. When I had it as long as the rest, it was always coming out of where I had it tied back to, so finally I just cut it.”

“Yes, but it’s over your eyes, isn’t it?”

“Not exactly. It mostly goes down the middle. And when it gets too long I cut it again.”

“I’ve never seen you do it.”

“That’s because I usually do it when I’ve been out on the borders for a while.”

“Oh.” Túrin put his chin in his hand and tipped his stool onto two legs, and the sharpening stone started singing again. After a minute, an idea crept into his head and he felt the corners of his mouth twitching. He raked his fingers through his hair—it finally reached his shoulders now—and pulled a lock down over his nose. It went below his chin, and he stifled a laugh. Through the tangled black curls he saw Beleg look over at him.

“Do you think it’s gotten long enough to cut?” Túrin asked with as straight a face as he could manage. Beleg grinned and with his foot he tipped Túrin’s stool back onto all four legs.

“Probably,” he said, “but I doubt the king would be pleased if you did.”

“Why?”

“It’s not a very princely look.”

“I don’t care what he thinks.” Túrin tossed his head and the lock of hair returned to its original place.

“I’m sure you don’t.”

* * * * *

~ _MENEGROTH_ ~

Beleg was told to wait in the wide vaulted corridor that led to the great hall. Although Mablung, who had accompanied him from the gate, had made no sarcastic comment, judging by the glances of the other guards, Beleg realized he must look more wild than he’d thought, his hair windblown and his travel garb discolored by months of exposure to the weather. He tried not to laugh at the expressions of mild surprise that flitted briefly across the faces of two courtiers that walked past him as he waited in the corridor.

Living underground was for dwarves, he decided again. He himself would certainly never choose to live so far from the trees and the sky for days on end.

After a few minutes, the heavy doors to the great hall opened and Túrin appeared. His face brightened at the sight of his friend and his pace quickened until they stood together.

“Beleg! It’s good to see you back again so soon.”

They boy was wearing a silk tunic with an intricate pattern woven at the hems with gold thread, and his snow-white cape swept the floor. The gold braided through his hair complemented the delicate circlet that suspended an emerald in the center of his forehead.

“What occasion have I interrupted?” Beleg asked. Túrin wrinkled his nose.

“Nothing of great importance. Only one of the midsummer feasts, and it is the third day in a row that I have been to one. Please tell me you’re here to take me out to the woods.”

“I was,” Beleg said, “but will the king be angry if I do?”

“Why would he be angry? I have done my duty going to the feasts for three days now; he can’t expect me to do more.”

Beleg laughed. “Well, you are not coming in that, are you?” he asked, gesturing towards Túrin’s clothes.

“Of course not!” As if to prove his words, Túrin tried to take off the emerald circlet, but it got tangled in his hair, and as he muttered a few choice words under his breath Beleg had to smile.

“It has been long since I saw you with your hair done up like this, Túrin. You look like a true elf prince; anyone could take you for a Noldo if they met you so.”

“And no one could take _you_ for one if they met _you_ so,” Túrin replied drily, nodding towards Beleg as he still struggled with the circlet. “You told me when I was a boy that you would cut your hair when it got so long over your eyes.”

“You never fail to remind me, do you?” Beleg said with another laugh. “But so I did. But I have only just come back from the north marches to find you and have not had a chance to cut it yet.”

“Well, see that you do soon.” He had finally gotten the circlet free, and now he started undoing one of his gold-wound braids. “I wonder that you can see to fight when you have it that long. If someday you don’t come back I shall assume it was because you didn’t see well enough to defend yourself. And you wouldn’t do _that_ to me, would you?”

“Of course not. I’ll cut it before we leave today. I promise.”

Túrin let out one of his rare laughs. “You had better.”

* * * * *

~ _TEIGLIN_ ~

Túrin sat, his knees pulled up to his chest, and looked down at his reflection in the brown water of the pool. Behind him in the camp he could hear the voices of the men, rough and loud, so much harsher than the elven voices he had grown up among, or even those of his parents, human though they had been.

Human. These men were his kind, if not his kin. He ran his fingers through the hair that hung matted over his shoulders. He hardly looked like an elf anymore. He could hear Saeros’s words from his last night in Menegroth echoing in his ears. Almost against his will, he drew a little dagger from his belt, and with a single stroke half of his hair fell to the ground. Once again on the other side, and then Túrin sheathed the knife and drew a deep breath. He was really and truly a Man now.

* * * * *

~ _TALATH DIRNEN_ ~

“Beleg?”

Beleg forced his eyes open and waited for a moment while the world spun. Something tingled in his throat and the light was unsteady and dim, like light from a torch, or an almost-burned-out fire. The ceiling above him was rough rock. A cave maybe?

“How are you feeling?”

Túrin! That’s right: he had finally returned. Beleg looked over. Túrin was sitting, legs crossed, on the cave floor close by, a flask in his hand. His expression was hard and dark, but Beleg detected a hint of worry in it as well. He managed a weak smile.

“I _told_ you that you could be a healer.”

Túrin scoffed and turned his face away. Beleg had time to notice now that his hair was short, a chaotic nest of dark curls instead of the rippling, elven-style curtain it had been when he had lived in Doriath. It looked strikingly similar to how it had been on that cold day in the woods thirteen years before.

“Today there should not have been need for a healer,” Túrin muttered. “Lie still. I will be back.” He stood up and went to the door of the cave, and Beleg closed his eyes again, listening as the sudden clamor of angry voices rose outside.

* * * * *

~ _BAR-EN-DANWEDH_ ~

Túrin could tell that there was something weighing on Beleg’s mind. Several times a day during the six days since the elf had arrived at Bar-en-Danwedh, Túrin would catch him watching him through narrowed eyes, but as soon as their gazes met, Beleg would just raise his eyebrows and smile and go about doing something else. Túrin wasn’t sure what to think about this, and he had decided to ask tonight after the others were asleep.

As he came to the north door, he could see Beleg sitting just inside the shadow of the arch, a silhouette against the winter-bright stars, looking out across the forest of Brethil to the dark slivers of mountaintops that pricked at the horizon. Túrin sat down just inside the doorway on the other side. For a while they were both silent, then Túrin ventured his question.

“My friend, what troubles you?”

“Me?” Beleg repeated. “Nothing troubles me. Why do you ask?”

Túrin felt a bit foolish now, but it was too late to turn back. “Since you came you have been looking at me as if you wanted to say something, but you never do.”

Beleg laughed softly. “I have been trying to decide whether or not to ask you about your hair.”

“My hair?”

“It is so short now, as it was last time I came. Why do you have it so?”

“It is much more convenient this way,” Túrin said with a shrug. But of course this was only the partial truth, and Beleg seemed to sense this, because he hummed suspiciously, and Túrin could see his eyes glittering from the shadows on the other side of the door. So Túrin sighed and told him the rest.

“In part, it was because I did not want to think of my life in Doriath. I have chosen my path, and I am no longer a shadow of the elves, and so I did not wish to look like one of them.” Beleg was silent. Túrin realized how what he had just said might have sounded, and quickly amended it by adding, “It is not that I hate them. Only…I am no longer the prince of Menegroth, I am my own man, and I want to look like my own kind.”

“I see.”

Túrin wasn’t sure why he felt so guilty now. “I have thought of letting it grow long again. But I have not decided yet. If I do, it will not be yet.” There was a soft rustling sound, as if Beleg had nodded his head. They both fell silent again, and looked out together toward the north while the stars circled slowly overhead.

* * * * *

~ _BAR-EN-DANWEDH_ ~

Beleg drew a deep breath. He had cut his hair short like this before, but it had been some time ago, and although the time it would take to grow back would be nothing to him, it would certainly feel like an eternity to Túrin if he didn’t like it.

Short hair _was_ convenient, though.

He took a lock of hair and set the knife edge against it. After a moment’s consideration, he moved it down an inch or so farther from his head. No need to go _that_ short—and he let out a wry laugh at his own cowardice, but for some reason this was more unnerving than he had remembered. He shut his eyes tightly and drew the knife through the lock of hair.

There! No going back now. He squinted at his reflection in the tarnished shield leaning against the wall, and decided it wasn’t _so_ bad. For the next five minutes he worked away at the rest of his hair, and soon he was surrounded on the floor by a pattern of shorn brown tresses.

Suddenly the door behind him slammed against the wall with a crash that echoed through all the tunnels of Bar-en-Danwedh.

“Beleg!” came Túrin’s horrified cry. “What are you _doing_?”

“I am cutting my hair,” Beleg replied. “You were always saying how inconvenient it must be, the way I had it.”

“I meant the bit that goes over your eyes, not the rest!”

“Túrin, your hair is short as well.”

“I know,” Túrin said in a strange voice, “But _I_ am not an elf.”

“Many elves have short hair,” Beleg reminded him.

“Not you, though!”

“I have had it so short long ago, and it will take only a year or two to grow back besides. And this way, when you let yours begin to grow again, I will too, and then we will match the whole time.”

Túrin had knelt down near Beleg now and was winding one of the fallen locks around his fingers. “What if I started letting it grow long again right away?”

“Then I will too. I promise.”

* * * * *

~ _AMON OBEL_ ~

Túrin lingered in letting the last dark lock fall from his fingers. He was reminded of the time he had cut his hair in Teiglin, but this time there was no bitterness or anger behind his decision. He was merely having a new start, leaving all his names behind, mastering his own fate.

And this time, truly, he felt that it was going to work.

**Author's Note:**

> Túrin: *cuts his hair*  
> Beleg: *autistic panicking*
> 
> Beleg: *cuts his hair*  
> Túrin: *autistic panicking*


End file.
